A curious confirmation of this is found in the pages of Herodotus, who tells us [17]: ‘The Arabians of all the gods only worshipped Dionysus, whom they called Ourotalt, and Urania;’ that is to say, they worshipped the two deities which, in the mind of the father of history, represented in themselves all that was known of the mysteries of creation, pointing to the very earliest period of Arabian cult, prior to the more refined religious development of the Sabæo-Himyaritic dynasty, when Sun-worship, veneration for the great luminary which regenerated all animal and vegetable life, superseded the grosser forms of nature-worship, to be itself somewhat superseded or rather incorporated in a worship of all the heavenly luminaries, which developed as a knowledge of astronomy was acquired. We have already discussed the round towers and the numerous monoliths which decorated the walls and other parts of the Zimbabwe ruins; excavation yielded further examples of the veneration for stones amongst the early inhabitants. One of these was a tall decorated soapstone pillar 11 feet 6 inches in height, which stood on the platform already alluded to, and acted as a centre to a group of monoliths; the base of this pillar we found in situ, the rest had been broken off and appropriated by a Kaffir to decorate a wall; it was worked with bands of geometric patterns around it, each different from the other and divided into compartments by circular patterns, one of which is the chevron pattern found on the circular ruin below; it only runs round a portion of the pillar; and may possibly have been used to orient it towards the setting sun. Besides this tall pillar we found two fragments of other similar pillars decorated one with geometric patterns and the other with an extraordinary and entirely inexplicable decoration. On these pillars the rosette is frequently depicted, and it would seem that they all came from the same place, namely, the platform decorated with monoliths. Here also we found several stones of a curious nature and entirely foreign to the place. Two of them are stones with even bands of an asbestiform substance, a serpentine with veins of chrysolite, the grooves being caused by the natural erosion of the fibrous bands. Another stone is an irregular polygonal pillar-like object of coarse-grained basalt, the smooth faces of which are natural points, the whole being a portion of a rough column or prism. Another, again, is a fragment of schistose rock, apparently hornblendic; also we found several round blocks of diorite in this place. The collection here of so many strange geological fragments cannot be accidental, and points to a veneration of curious-shaped stones amongst the earlier inhabitants of the ruins, which were collected here on the platform, a spot which, I am convinced, will compare with the βαιτύλια or betyles of the Phœnicians, and of this stone cult we have ample evidence from Arabia.